Why My Next Job Is The Best

by Rev. James Wong

So, this is what some people think—the next job is the best. There are many reasons why we can feel lousy about the job we are holding down now, such as , a calculative boss, overloaded workload, lack of incentives, stringent regulations, meagre pay, meaningless routine work, no value for creativity, negligible year end bonus, unfair work distribution, unreasonable demands, no appreciation for extra work hours, a sense of a bleak future and so, no light at the end of the tunnel.

Add on to the fire is this: the prices of properties have sky rocketed unprecedentedly for the past two years and owning a house is beyond the reach of many employees. After a brief walk around I found that the property prices in Sandakan is comparable to that in the capital city of Kota Kinabalu. Generally, working in the capital city offers better pay. Attractions and higher pay are among the reasons why a lot of young people chose to work in Kota Kinabalu or Kuala Lumpur and the neighboring countries.

The income potential will be the main consideration for most people to decide on the kind of education they want to have. The offering trends of our churches in the Basel family has shown that, comparatively, the offerings from the English congregations are higher than the Chinese congregations. There are two main reasons for this. Either the members of the English congregations are more generous (this is unlikely) or they are financially more affluent because of the kind of works they do. The later is true. Certain categories of job will never give you the kind of pay you desire no matter what you do or how faithful you stay in it. Higher education or specialized education that can garner a good market demand is the key to higher income. Parents encourage their children who are educated overseas not to return because of the much higher income they can earn outside the country. Is higher income the whole gamut of work? … NO!

Not underestimating the importance of the income amount, something more important than the money is the way we approach our job. Why and how we get our job done is more important than the money we get because our job reflects our character. We cannot bring our job to heaven but we bring with us our character to heaven.
God wants to see the kind of character we develop through the works we do.

The Bible gives us clear principles on the way we should approach our work. The moment we understand that we offer our worship to God through the work we do, our whole perspective changes. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men” 2 Col 3:23-24 (NIV). Who are you working for?

While you may think that the next job you get will be the best, you can make the present job the best for God. Don’t work for a small boss, work for a bigger boss—God.